


You Oughta Know

by performativezippers



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alanis Morissette - Freeform, F/F, It's not ironic, It's so 90s, Jagged Little Pill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 12:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18521245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/performativezippers/pseuds/performativezippers
Summary: Alex blinks, about four times. Is…has she just found the one thing Maggie won’t joke about? Is the only thing in the world she takes seriously…Alanis Morissette?





	You Oughta Know

Alex learns quickly that there are not a lot of things that Maggie takes too seriously.

 

Or, well, there aren’t a lot of things that Maggie won’t talk about with sarcasm or irony. She has a dark sense of a humor, and a wall around her heart several cities thick.

 

It’s easier to be irreverent, when you’re always worried about being hurt.

 

She keeps things at a distance.

 

Even her job – possibly the one true love of her life – she cracks jokes about and rolls her eyes and murmurs snide comments to friends in briefings or on stakeouts. She does her job with enviable commitment and astounding talent, but she’s not too serious.

 

Not like Alex.

 

She even jokes about her parents, sometimes. Clearly a defense mechanism – a textbook, obvious, scream of a defense mechanism – but, still. She’s flippant about it, most of the time.

 

Alex doesn’t press.

 

Politics, money, celebrities, their friends, even alien attacks. All met with a bit of light banter, a sarcastic quip. She makes people laugh about the things that make them uncomfortable. That make her uncomfortable.

 

It kind of seems like she doesn’t just unabashedly _like_ anything in the way that means she won’t make fun of it.

 

It’s intimidating. Her irreverence contributes to her effortlessly cool vibe, and Alex always feels like she’s tripping over herself in comparison. Alex has always been a little too earnest; a flaw she hadn’t worried about as much since college, but being with Maggie has made her aware of it again.

 

Maggie cares, but doesn’t show it, and Alex has never quite mastered that skill.

 

So one day, about six months into their relationship, they’re listening to a 90’s playlist in the car on a long drive back from a rare weekend away. It’s throwback after throwback, and they’re both making each other laugh with jokes and impressions, changing the lyrics or mocking the old outfits they can remember. After a long discussion of Justin Timberlake’s ramen hair, Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” comes on.

 

Maggie’s driving, so Alex is in charge of the music.

 

“Ugh,” Alex scoffs. “I fucking hate this song.” She quickly skips it, but Maggie slams on the brakes for a second.

 

Alex sputters, her seatbelt cutting into her neck. “Mags, what the fuck?” They’re on the freaking _highway_.

 

“Go back,” Maggie says, quickly hitting the gas again.

 

Alex is busy checking herself for signs of whiplash. “What?”

 

“The song. Go back.”

 

Alex is beyond confused, but she does it. The intro is a little slow, so she assumes Maggie just hadn’t realized what the song was. But as the lyrics kick in, Maggie’s head starts to bob, and Alex realizes that Maggie’s known exactly what it was this whole time.

 

After the first chorus, Maggie looks over at her. “What do you mean, you hate this song?” She’s incredulous, like it’s impossible.

 

Alex rolls her eyes. “Come on, Mags. The song is called ‘Ironic,’ and literally nothing in it is ironic! I mean, _that’s_ ironic, I guess. But, seriously. Just call it ‘bad fucking luck,’ or something. It’s a mess.”

 

She expects a laugh, or an eye roll, or a sarcastic sing-along. But instead Maggie is furrowing her eyebrows behind her sunglasses. “Come on, Alex, this song defined our generation.”

 

Alex laughs – that’s hilarious – but after a beat she realizes that Maggie isn’t joking.

 

Alex blinks, about four times. Is…has she just found the one thing Maggie won’t joke about? Is the only thing in the world she takes seriously… _Alanis Morissette_?

 

“Doesn’t it bother you, that the whole song is wrong?”

 

Maggie shakes her head. “Al, we were like 10 when this came out.”

 

“I know! And I’ll never get back the two months of fifth grade I spent as a total outcast because Vicky was obsessed with this song and I kept telling everyone that this isn’t what irony means!”

 

Maggie finally laughs, positively snickering. “Alex, you didn’t.”

 

Alex has always been too earnest. Too honest. Too principled. It’s always sucked. “I did. It was not a popular position, let me tell you.”

 

Maggie nods. “I’d have killed you,” she says sagely. “It’s a good thing we didn’t know each other then.”

 

And she doesn’t say it, but Alex hears it. That line of argument will not be tolerated in this car, either.

 

And isn’t it ironic, that the only thing Maggie won’t greet with joyful irony, is “Ironic.”

 

* * *

 

It’s not just that one song. Alex learns during their relationship that the entire album, every single song on _Jagged Little Pill_ , is deeply serious to Maggie. They don’t talk about it much, because Alex traces the beginning of the end of her being popular to her firm anti-Ironic stance, so it’s a sore spot for both of them.

 

But she keeps that knowledge locked in her brain.

 

Maggie loves – unabashedly, seriously, fiercely – early Alanis.

 

* * *

 

They break up.

 

It’s brutal. It rips Alex’s entire body apart. It was mutual, or something. They want different things, or something. It’s horrible.

 

Alex has only felt this horrible once before. When Kara had called to say goodbye, flying Fort Rozz into space, but that pain hadn’t lasted long before Alex had hopped into a pod and saved her.

 

There’s no pod, now. No saving them.

 

Alex has never felt pain like this.

 

Months pass, and it doesn’t fade. She becomes accustomed to it, but it doesn’t ease. She gets better at breathing, sleeping, walking, eating – drinking – with it, but it never leaves her. It never softens.

 

She hurts, every second. All the time.

 

She wonders when Maggie will start making flippant jokes about it.

 

* * *

 

Alex is on a date. She hates dating, but it’s easier to have one boring, blandly upsetting evening every once in a while than to deal with Kara’s constant worried disappointment.

 

So Alex is out at a restaurant with some beautiful woman. She works at a start-up, and they’re having a perfectly pleasant conversation about the technology she works with. It would be lovely and interesting, if the woman weren’t devouring Alex with her eyes.

 

Honestly, it’s exhausting. It takes everything Alex has in her just to do her job and feed herself and be a good sister, with all this pain inside of her. Adding dating is way too much.

 

So Alex pretends it’s a dinner between colleagues. She ignores the way Jasmine is eye-fucking her without her consent, and leans in, asking detailed questions about the science behind the start-up.

 

But then, right as Alex is gesticulating, using her hands to try to show where in a double-helix she’s talking about, she sees a flash of dark curls on a leather jacket. And she’d know that hair anywhere.

 

The pain – always present – throttles up, like an acoustic guitar suddenly plugged into an amp.

 

Alex freezes, unsure if she should stand and say hi, or if she should hide behind her menu for the next twelve or so years.

 

Obviously, whatever she does will end at the bottom of a very large bottle of whiskey.

 

But before Alex can move, Maggie looks over her shoulder. She offers Alex a little half wave, and then she pointedly turns and keeps walking.

 

So, that’s a no on saying hi, then.

 

Jasmine doesn’t even notice.

 

* * *

 

Alex texts Kara, asking her to fly by Maggie’s apartment, just to make sure she’s okay.

 

Alex is the furthest thing from okay, and just in case, she wants to make sure Maggie is alright.

 

This isn’t the first time Kara’s been asked to do a fly-by, so she doesn’t bother to fight Alex on it. She just does it.

 

She comes to Alex’s apartment afterwards. It’s late, and Alex is hoping that Kara didn’t hear Maggie with someone else. She’s also hoping that Kara is becoming a better liar, in case she did.

 

But Kara flies in, and she shakes her head. “I think she was alone,” she reports. “She was listening to music and singing along. It was pretty loud.”

 

Alex nods. “Thanks, Kara.”

 

But then Kara starts humming. “Dang, what song was it? It’s stuck in my head but I don’t remember the words.” She hums it again, and Alex’s blood runs cold.

 

She quickly walks to her phone and plays it. She still has it downloaded, from back then. “Was it this, Kara?” Her voice is more urgent than she’d prefer, and Kara’s no dope, so she catches it immediately.

 

“Yeah! Wow, that was fast. Nice.”

 

But it’s not nice.

 

The lyrics wash over Alex and she wants to stab herself in the heart. That would be significantly less painful.

 

Because this is music that Maggie takes more seriously than anything else in her life. And tonight she saw Alex on a date, and now she’s screaming along, alone in her apartment, to “You Oughta Know.”

 

Alex hasn’t listened to it in a long time, but each word feels like it was written exactly for this moment.

 

 

 

> _I want you to know  
>  _ _I’m happy for you  
>  _ _I wish nothing but the best for you both_

Fucking restaurant, with the fucking good yelp reviews. Of course Maggie saw her the one time she was on a date, instead of the millions of times she’s been out and about with Kara since the break up. Alex wants to scream “We’re not a couple! There’s no both!” but she can’t. She can’t fix what Maggie saw.

 

Alanis asks “ _Would she go down on you in the theater?_ ” and Kara’s ears turn bright pink. And, okay, they’re law enforcement, so no, they did not do that.

  
But also, like, yes.

 

But then Alanis says “ _Would she have your baby? I’m sure she’d make a really excellent mother_ ,” and Alex can feel her heart ripping into horrible, evil, shriveled pieces. Fucking Alanis Morissette and fucking lyrics and fucking breakup and fucking everything in the world.

 

But that’s far from the worst. Alanis says what is maybe the most pointed, most perfectly awful set of words that Alex has ever heard.

 

 

 

> _And every time you speak her name_  
>  _Does she know how you told me_  
>  _You’d hold me until you died  
>  _ _Til you died  
>  _ _But you’re still alive_

 

She did promise that. She did. Over and over, she did. So many different versions: _I’ll never leave you_ , and _you’ll never be alone again_ , and _I’ll never abandon you_ , and _I’ll love you forever_ , and _let’s just stay like this, forever, in this apartment_.

 

And she’s still alive but Maggie isn’t here and it’s because of Alex and she broke all of her promises.

 

She’d promised to hold Maggie until she died, but she’s still alive, and Maggie is nowhere to be seen.

 

Alanis gets mad, and Alex is already crying.

 

 

 

> _And I’m here_  
>  _To remind you_  
>  _Of the mess you left when you went away_  
>  _It’s not fair_  
>  _To deny me  
>  _ _Of the cross I bear that you gave to me  
>  _ _You, you, you oughta know_

 

Alex knows. She knows. She ruined Maggie’s life. Again. Perfect, tender, bruised Maggie. Alex scooped her up and loved her so earnestly, so loudly, and then left her.

 

The tone changes, and Alex can picture Maggie vacillating between the two extremes – polite, cold, honest and furiously angry.

 

It’s so simple, “ _I’m not quite as well, I thought you should know_ ,” and it’s just so Maggie that it makes Alex sob into her hands.

 

Furious anger bubbles up, and Kara comes over, holding Alex in her arms as if to ward off the lyrics. The memories. The truth.

 

 

 

> _Did you forget about me?_  
>  _Mr. Duplicity?_  
>  _I hate to bug you in the middle of dinner_  
>  _But it was a slap in the face  
>  __How quickly I was replaced  
>  __And are you thinking of me when you_ **fuck** her?

 

Alex shudders. She has. She has thought about Maggie every single time she’s slept with anyone else. Sara Lance, and the three girls since. It’s always been fucking – nothing more tender – and it’s never been right, and it’s always been because of Maggie. Always, everything Maggie.

 

And she knows it.

 

 

 

> _I’m not gonna fade  
>  _ _As soon as you close your eyes  
>  _ _And you know it_

 

She hasn’t faded. Not for a fucking second.

 

 

 

> _And every time I scratch my nails  
>  _ _Down someone else’s back I hope you feel it  
>  _ _Well can you feel it?_

 

Alex cracks open in Kara’s arms.

 

 

 

> _Well I’m here_  
>  _To remind you_  
>  _Of the mess you left when you went away_  
>  _It’s not fair_  
>  _To deny me  
>  _ _Of the cross I bear that you gave to me  
>  _ _You, you, you oughta know_

 

The pain hasn’t gone away for even a second, but this is the loudest it’s been since the day Maggie had walked out the door. Since the day Alex had pushed her out the door.

 

* * *

 

Alex finds herself at Maggie’s apartment two days later. She’s listened to Alanis maybe seventy-five times since that night. She’d never thought of herself as the breakup album type, but something about Alanis’ pain feels so personal. Like Alex is tearing open her own wounds and pouring acid into them. It hurts like fuck, and she deserves it.

 

But Maggie doesn’t.

 

Maggie ought to know that she isn’t with anyone else. That Alex isn’t fucking anyone else. That she isn’t well, either. That Alex is a monster, yes, but not in that particular way.

 

Maggie deserves to know.

 

She knocks, and Maggie opens the door. She’s so beautiful that Alex can barely stand up.

 

It comes out in a rush. “I’m not dating her. That girl—I’m not…I’m not with her.” She takes a shuddering breath. “I’m not with anyone. I haven’t…not at all. Just—it’s…just you.”

 

Maggie swallows. She looks only confused. “Okay,” she starts, her words hesitant and slow. “Alex, why…”

 

But Alex keeps going. “I know you saw me, and then you thought…and I…I’m not, okay? I’m not…I’m not happy. I’m not doing well. I just…” And she doesn’t mean to be quoting the song but she’s listened to it so many times in the last 48 hours that it just comes out. “I thought you should know.”

 

Maggie’s eyebrows come together, and then fly up.

 

She knows this album better than the Miranda Rights.

 

“You thought I should know?”

 

It’s a test, and Alex is done lying. “I didn’t replace you, Mags,” she whispers. “I will never. I could never.”

 

Maggie swallows. “Kara, right? Flew by, heard me? The other night?”

 

Alex nods. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

 

Maggie tightens her grip on the doorknob. Alex hadn’t even noticed she’s still in the doorway, that Maggie hasn’t stepped back to invite her in.

 

“I’m not,” Maggie says softly. “I don’t think I have been.”

 

Alex nods, almost greedily. “Me either,” she whispers.

 

There’s a long beat, and then Alex says what she’s been wanting to scream for almost a year. “I was wrong. I was stupid. I know it’s too late, but I just want you to know. If I could, I’d take it all back. The only thing I’ll ever want in my life is you.”

 

Maggie’s voice cracks a little. “What about kids?”

 

Alex shrugs. She can’t help it. She’s been listening to this fucking album non-stop. “You live, you learn,” she says. “I was wrong.”

 

Maggie ducks her head, but Alex can see that she’s almost smiling.

 

* * *

 

It takes over a month, but Alex slowly starts to wear down Maggie’s outer wall of defenses. Maggie doesn’t trust her, which, yes. Fair. Beyond fair.

 

But Alex has always been earnest. Honest. Principled. Alex has always loved unabashedly, loudly. Alex spent two months of fifth grade losing all her friends because of the definition of irony. She’s nothing if not dedicated to her truth.

 

And Maggie is her only truth.

 

It’s over a month of Alex texting even though Maggie might only respond to every fifth message, sending over take-out when Maggie’s been working long shifts, writing long emails explaining her feelings and what’s changed. Over a month of Alex not quite inviting Maggie out, but saying “I’ll be getting coffee at Noonan’s at 10am tomorrow” and waiting for two hours just in case Maggie shows up.

 

And then one Sunday, Maggie shows up.

 

It’s awkward, and weird, and only lasts twenty minutes, but Alex is beaming.

 

It’s a start.

 

* * *

 

Maggie is clearly terrified.

 

She let Alex sweep her away once, and it ended with her heart impaled on a dagger she hadn’t seen coming. She’s incredibly resistant to this second try, but Alex is patient.

 

She uses all of her training, all of her background. She cultivates the relationship. She waits. She offers, again and again and again. She quietly celebrates every small mark of progress.

 

Maggie is terrified, but she doesn’t seem able to resist Alex. Not completely.

 

Like coaxing a nervous animal into a shelter, Alex quietly, softly, earnestly, brings Maggie towards her.

 

* * *

 

But four months into this new thing – relationship? courtship? futile expenditure of false hope? – Alex is starting to lose her faith. She’s made every single overture and she’s starting to feel like one of those creepy boys who can’t take no for an answer. Maggie hasn’t ever said no, said to back off, asked Alex to stop. But it’s been a while since she’s responded with anything other than tentative, terrified neutrality, and Alex doesn’t know how much longer she can do this.

 

She wants Maggie, but she honestly has no fucking idea what Maggie wants. If it’s ever going to happen.

 

She texts her one night, Alanis quietly playing in the background.

 

**Alex: “I’ll wait forever, but only if you want me to. Say the word, and I’ll stop bothering you. I don’t mean to make anything worse.”**

 

Maggie doesn’t text her back that night.

 

Alex loses all hope.

 

She drinks a lot of very hard things and entirely loses her cool.

 

* * *

 

Alex wakes in the morning, mouth dry and head throbbing. She’s hungover as fuck.

 

She blindly gropes for her phone, wondering how late she’s going to be for work.

 

But there’s a text on her screen that clears the cobwebs from her brain like an industrial vacuum.

 

It’s from Maggie, and it’s just a spotify link. Alex clicks it, and it starts to play.

 

 

 

> _I had no choice but to hear you_  
>  _You stated your case time and again_  
>  _I thought about it  
>  _ _You treat me like I’m a princess  
>  _ _I’m not used to that_

 

Alex is crying before the first chorus, because this is the one song she hasn’t let herself listen to at all. It hurts too much.

 

But Maggie sent it this morning. Alex had said “tell me if you want me to stop,” and Maggie had sent this song in response, and Maggie doesn’t joke about this album. Maggie means it.

 

 

 

> _You’ve already won me over_  
>  _In spite of me_  
>  _And don’t be alarmed if I fall_  
>  _Head over feet  
>  _ _And don’t be surprised if I love you  
>  _ _For all that you are_

 

Alex is scrabbling at her pone, unsure if she should finish listening to the song or if she should call Maggie immediately. But the next line is so fucking _Maggie_ that she chokes, giving herself the hiccups.

 

 

 

> _I couldn’t help it  
>  _ _It’s all your fault_

 

She lasts one more verse, trying to get herself under control, but she can’t wait.

 

 

 

> _Your love is thick and it swallowed me whole  
>  _ _You’re so much braver than I gave you credit for_

Maggie is the bravest, toughest, most incredible person. Four months of Alex courting, and Maggie is the first one to say I love you. Well, through Alanis, but still. It counts.

 

Alex calls her, unsuccessfully trying to control her sobbing hiccups.

 

“Maggie,” she gasps into the phone.

 

And she can hear that Maggie’s smiling. “It’s all your fault, Danvers.”

 

* * *

 

Maggie wants a band for their wedding, and Alex thinks bands are dumb but she honestly can’t care less. They book a band that seems good, and Alex immediately puts her plan into action.

 

Their wedding isn’t quite the biggest, but it’s definitely the gayest.

 

Also the wettest. They’re getting married on the beach in Midvale, and it never rains in Midvale, but it’s fucking pouring. They have a tent for dinner, but the ceremony is supposed to be on the sand, under the open sky.

 

After a lot of texting and discussion, they decide to just go for it. They both wear waterproof makeup, and they put their hair back, and they have a gorgeous – extremely damp – ceremony.

 

J’onn has to keep blinking rain out of his eyes as he officiates, but they’re all pretty sure he’d have been crying anyway, so it’s probably fine.

 

Maggie is wearing a truly gorgeous white suit, and Alex nearly falls head over feet when she sees her. Thank goodness for Kara’s steadying hand on her arm.

 

Alex is wearing a dress – form fitting with sweeping lace – and Maggie literally cries when she sees her, and Alex has never felt so beautiful. Maggie whispers into her ear, during the pause between two toasts when they’re finally under the tent, that she’s going to take it off Alex with her teeth tonight.

 

Alex does not object.

 

But about halfway through the party, Alex disappears for a few songs. Maggie is fine, happily chatting with J’onn and a few friends from work, but she wonders where her wife (her _wife!_ ) has vanished to. But then she notices that Kara is gone too, and she assumes they’re off in a corner while Kara sobs with happiness. It wouldn’t be the first time since they announced the engagement.

 

Maggie has her back to the stage, so it isn’t until the first notes fill the room that she turns around in surprise and sees that the lead singer has been replaced. By _Liz_. Her best friend in the world, who has an annoyingly good voice and the confidence of a Beyoncé dancer.

 

Maggie looks around, wondering if this is a sanctioned take-over or if Liz is just being Liz.

 

But then it clicks for her what song this is. She desperately looks around for Alex, hoping to ease the anxiety that she knows always flares in her wife (her _wife_!) when this song comes up. But Alex is nowhere to be seen.

 

Liz starts singing, softly crooning about several things that are not, in fact, ironic. A dead lottery winner, contaminated wine, state-sanctioned murder.

 

 

 

> _Well isn’t it ironic?  
>  _ _Don’t you think?_

 

But then the beat drops and suddenly Alex is there, popping onto the stage next to Liz, a microphone in her hand.

 

 

 

> _It’s like raaaaaaaain on your wedding day_

 

Alex looks right at her and winks – because, of course, it’s their wedding day and it’s fucking pouring – and Maggie can’t even breathe. She has never, never, loved anyone like this before.

 

 

 

> _It’s a free riiiiiiiiide, but you’ve already paid_

 

It takes Maggie a few lines to notice that Alex has changed out of her dress. She’s now wearing a silky white romper – spaghetti straps showing off miles of her chest and shoulders – and her hair is swept back. She’s, quite honestly, the hottest thing Maggie has ever seen.

 

It’s even longer before she realizes Kara is up on stage too, harmonizing into another microphone.

 

 

 

> _It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take  
>  _ _And who would’ve thought?  
>  _ _It figuuuuuuures_

 

Kara and Liz are doing amazing Alanis impressions, messing with their vowels and slurring their consonants, and Maggie’s sure that she’ll appreciate it a lot on all her rewatches. But right now she only has eyes for Alex.

 

Kara takes the second verse, about a plane going down, winking at everyone who knows she’s Supergirl. Maggie groans. The girl is not subtle.

 

The chorus comes back, and Alex is grinning, getting super into the song, but never failing to look at Maggie and beam.

 

This song was the beginning of the end of Alex having real friends, but she’s beaming and belting and jamming and it’s because she’s now married to Maggie and Maggie can’t even breathe. She hears people whooping and whistling and she’s pretty sure some of it is coming from her but she has no idea.

 

Alex takes the third verse, stepping forward, and Maggie’s heart is in her throat. God, she just loves this beautiful, earnest, ridiculous woman.

 

Towards the end of the verse, Alex changes the lyrics, just a little. “ _It’s like meeting the woman of your dreams,_ ” she sings, pointing at Maggie, and then she grins even bigger. “ _And then meeting her beautiful wife_.” She points at herself, throwing her head back into a full layout and smirking.

 

Winn screams with joy.

 

Alex winks right at Maggie, pulling herself back up. “ _And isn’t it ironic, don’t you think_?” The beat drops, and Alex just jams to it.

 

 

 

> _It’s like raaaaaaaain on your wedding day_

 

* * *

 

Maggie ends up taking the romper off with her teeth, and it’s not ironic at all.

 

And then Alex is peeling Maggie’s white shirt off of her, she laughs about how see-through it was after the ceremony. “ _I see right throoooough you_ ,” she hums, slipping her hands under it. “ _I feel right throoooough you_.”

 

And then Maggie shuts her up, thank you very much.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and being the best imaginary friends in the world.
> 
> Come visit me on my tumblr (performativezippers) and twitter (p_zippers) to learn useless things about my life, read my rants, and support my other work. Heart you.


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